The Public Image [antikvár]

One It was the middle of Friday morning. The sun shone gold-brown on the expanse of parquet floor, in room after room. The furniture was to be delivered during the course of the following week, some on Monday, some on Thursday, some on Friday. The English nurse was to arrive on Monday morning. The housemaid, too, was to come on Monday at eight in the morning. She was to be brought, with ali her belong-ings in her brother's car, which he was ferrying over from Sardinia with the girl, for the occasion. In Rome it would have been almost ungrateful to ex-pect such plans to move to an orderly conclusion; it was to be expected that some of these arrangements ('Monday for sure "Thursday morning - leave it to me.') would start moving anticlockwise at some point. But for the présent, everything had happened that was necessary. Annabel Christopher, the tawny-eyed actress, who in private life was Mrs Frederick Christopher, was astonished at the cairn achievement so far. For one who was unaccustomed to organize anything, and who was constitutionally haphazard, she was astonished at what had in fact come about so far by her own effort, so that it had been possible for her to take on the fiat, have it cleaned and painted, decide on the essential minimum